A journey
I’ve gotten emails from a few readers (crazy, I know) asking questions about Animation Mentor. I have a little secret for those of you who are planning to join… DO IT NOW! The prices are increasing by $1,075 with the new curriculum, but if you pay the $500 enrollment fee by August 31st you can still get the current price.
I promise you won’t regret it, no matter who you are.
And tell them I sent you. 
So for quite a while now I have wanted to make my own puppets. I don’t even want to do ventriloquism, I just want to make them. Tonight I was scouring the internet for information on making puppets (there’s a HUGE hobbyist community) and I came across a list of suggested books for the beginner puppet maker. My eye zipped down to an image of a book I haven’t seen since I was 7 and it immediately took me back. I’ve always said that the Christopher Hart books are what got me hooked on drawing characters, but tonight I realized that it was Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals that truly got me hooked. I remember going with my class to the school library and checking that book out over and over again until my teacher sternly suggested that I should branch out a little. (kind of like when I kept making my mom rent Star Wars Animated Classics - Ewoks: The Haunted Village, but that’s a different story) I found the book on Amazon for $1.07 and I think I’ll buy it, take that Mrs. Seamons.
Oh, no, don’t get me wrong. I’m leaning A TON at Animation Mentor! The one thing that I can’t seem to get into my head; however, is to save my freaking work!! Tonight was the second night that I’ve lost a considerable amount of work to the electricity god… who I’m guessing is Zeus. On Monday I started on my bouncing balls project and I had planned on having the light ball trigger the fall of the heavy ball. It was actually beginning to look pretty good, I was in the ZONE and animating my cute little heart out when ZAP!! The lights, as well as my computer, went out. Well I really learned my lesson and after a palm slap to my forehead and a “stupid stupid stupid” I promised myself that I would not let that happen again. Yeah, needless to say, it happened again tonight. I might be better off now though, I decided to scrap the concept and do something a little more basic… after all it IS “Basic Foundations”
The good news: I had enough battery in my laptop to play 23 games of Spider Solitaire while the power was out… one of which, I won!
Wow, my first day on AM was quite exciting. I watched a few of the videos and I’ve begun playing around with Stu a bit. That IK arm is going to be the death of me, I know it’s good practice but I’ve had traumatic experiences in the past. The Eric Goldberg interview was golden and it made me even more excited for his book. A lot of the people in my class have pretty good demo reels already, which is intimidating but I’m grateful that there are so many talented people.
Tomorrow, my first Q and A.
It’s funny how things work sometimes. Tonight I was driving to pick up Taeler from work and I tuned into NPR hoping for some company. Usually NPR doesn’t come in very well but tonight it was crystal clear, which was nice for a change. There was an interview with David A. Price, who’s book I admittedly haven’t read. They discussed the beginnings of Pixar as well as “The Pixar Touch”. There’s a couple little nuggets of inspiration in the interview, so give it a listen below.
And congrats to Pixar on Wall-E I haven’t been able to see it yet but I hear it’s great.
Firstly, AM starts in a matter of days. I’ve been waiting so long and finally the day has come. It’s killing me not being able to log in to the site between classes. I finally got my Mac Pro, I’m a happy camper! I haven’t done anything too intense with it yet but I have only seen the beachball cursor once so far. The down side is that my monitor stopped working so I’m using a 15 incher for the time being, it’s killing me. Maya on such a small screen is depressing. Also, if any prospective AMers are reading this and need a webcam, I’m selling my Quickcam Pro 9000 as soon as the Quickcam Pro Vision comes out, this thing has great picture but in OS X you can’t switch it from high res mode, so it’s stuck at 5fps. Unacceptable!
I’m really excited for Eric Goldberg’s new book Character Animation Crash Course! I’ve read a lot of his notes and I’m sure this book is going to be loaded with great and unique tips.
And what blog post would be complete without a little GRRR? I just have to quickly express my disgust with the Wal-Mart /Home Depot self checkout kiosk. It’s crazy that companies so global would contract something so vile. I hate to sound like an elitist animator, because I’m not. but come on.. come on.
I can finally log in to AM! Right now I only have access to the orientation page and I haven’t yet been assigned a mentor yet. Nevertheless, I’m really excited. I watched all of the orientation videos and there was a lot of good advice (thanks Alexiss) that I had to learn the hard way at Art Institute. I can’t wait to gain full access to the site so I can meet some more geeks like me!
Next step, getting the money for my Mac Pro.
I just watched the Weinstein release of The Thief and the Cobbler and it was very painful. It’s like putting sunglasses on the Mona Lisa. Parts of it are beautiful but it’s a textbook example of studios trying to make things more appealing and ruining art. What a shame.
Thank heavens for the Recobbled Cut.
If I watch another AM Webinar before I start AM I think I’m likely to explode of excitement.
At The Art Institute I had to produce so much content in such a small amount of time with not enough guidance and with the bar set very low. In the months leading up to the completion of my reel I felt stranded and neck deep in animations that I didn’t plan out well enough. The amount of time given to grow as an animator wasn’t enough; I spent too much time worrying about other facets of production or general education classes and not enough of what I truly loved.
After graduation I was so relieved to have my reel in the can that I took a break from animating. I feel like it was a well needed break, and probably a healthy one. The problem was that I took a break from being an animator. I surveyed my surroundings less and I stopped analyzing the gestures of strangers as much.
Since getting accepted to AM the animator inside me has been been awoken and is ready to animate again. My teachers at Ai were very helpful and I don’t blame them at all, I just think that the administration needs to take a look at how Animation Mentor is doing things and restructure their curriculum to churn out students who are great at one thing, not good at many.
Today is a sad day in the world of animation. I don’t really know what to say. Ollie’s work has definitely inspired me both as a young child and as an aspiring animator. I’m sure that The Nine Old Men are having a blast in the studio in the sky.
Now I am really inspired to finish The Illusion of Life.
And don’t forget: “What is the character thinking and why does he feel that way?”